Influence of thermal insulation and wind velocity on the SMA actuator for morphing applications

This paper presents the modeling and simulation of shape memory alloy (SMA) wire actuators for morphing micro air vehicles (MAVs) when exposed to high-velocity wind during flight. The specific operating conditions include thermal insulation, varying convective heat-transfer coefficients due to wind velocity, aerodynamic loads, and operation from MAV battery. Application-oriented modeling parameters were determined from a flyable morphing MAV. The simulation could dynamically generate the morphing angle as a function of the electrical input pulse duty cycle. The model showed that compared with 10 % duty cycle, a 25 % duty cycle achieves an energy saving of 33 % and an increase in actuation speed of 3.7 times. Further, increasing the duty cycle has a negligible improvement in energy saving, but the actuation rate is increased by 15.8 times. The SIMULINK® model, which was validated through the ground test, would help in the design of SMA actuators and controllers for aerospace vehicles and automobiles.